The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 60

Some of the preachers insist that G.o.d inst.i.tuted marriage in the Garden of Eden. We now know that there was no Garden of Eden, and that woman was not made from the first man's rib. n.o.body with any real sense believes this now. The inst.i.tution of marriage was not established by Jehovah. Neither was it established by Christ, not any of his apostles.

In considering the question of divorce, the supernatural should be discarded. We should take into consideration only the effect upon human beings. The G.o.ds should be allowed to take care of themselves.

Is it to the interest of a husband and wife to live together after love has perished and when they hate each other? Will this add to their happiness? Should a woman be compelled to remain the wife of a man who hates and abuses her, and whom she loathes? Has society any interest in forcing women to live with men they hate?

There is no real marriage without love, and in the marriage state there is no morality without love. A woman who remains the wife of a man whom she despises, or does not love, corrupts her soul.

She becomes degraded, polluted, and feels that her flesh has been soiled. Under such circ.u.mstances a good woman suffers the agonies of moral death. It may be said that the woman can leave her husband; that she is not compelled to live in the same house or to occupy the same room. If she has the right to leave, has she the right to get a new house? Should a woman be punished for having married?

Women do not marry the wrong men on purpose. Thousands of mistakes are made--are these mistakes sacred? Must they be preserved to please G.o.d?

What good can it do G.o.d to keep people married who hate each other?

What good can it do the community to keep such people together?

_Question_. Do you consider marriage a contract or a sacrament?

_Answer_. Marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. No matter whether it is called a contract or a sacrament, it remains the same. A true marriage is a natural concord or agreement of souls--a harmony in which discord is not even imagined.

It is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist. All other considerations are lost. The present seems eternal. In this supreme moment there is no shadow, or the shadow is as luminous as light.

When two beings thus love, thus united, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. The idea of contract is lost. Duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one.

This is real marriage.

Now, if the man turns out to be a wild beast, if he destroys the happiness of the wife, why should she remain his victim?

If she wants a divorce, she should have it. The divorce will not hurt G.o.d or the community. As a matter of fact, it will save a life.

No man not poisoned by superst.i.tion will object to the release of an abused wife. In such a case only savages can object to divorce.

The man who wants courts and legislatures to force a woman to live with him is a monster.

_Question_. Do you believe that the divorced should be allowed to marry again?

_Answer_. Certainly. Has the woman whose rights have been outraged no right to build another home? Must this woman, full of kindness, affection and health, be chained until death releases her? Is there no future for her? Must she be an outcast forever? Can she never sit by her own hearth, with the arms of her children about her neck, and by her side a husband who loves and protects her?

There are no two sides to this question.

All human beings should be allowed to correct their mistakes. If the wife has flagrantly violated the contract of marriage, the husband should be given a divorce. If the wife wants a divorce, if she loathes her husband, if she no longer loves him, then the divorce should be granted.

It is immoral for a woman to live as the wife of a man whom she abhors. The home should be pure. Children should be well-born.

Their parents should love one another.

Marriages are made by men and women, not by society, not by the state, not by the church, not by the G.o.ds. Nothing is moral, that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings.

The good home is the unit of good government. The hearthstone is the corner-stone of civilization. Society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes. It is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate.

Most of the laws about divorce are absurd or cruel, and ought to be repealed.

--_The Herald_, New York, February, 1897.

MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.

_Question_. How do you enjoy staying in Chicago?

_Answer_. Well, I am about as happy as a man can be when he is away from home. I was at the opera last night. I am always happy when I hear the music of Wagner interpreted by such a genius as Seidl. I do not believe there is a man in the world who has in his brain and heart more of the real spirit of Wagner than Anton Seidl. He knows how to lead, how to phrase and shade, how to rush and how to linger, and to express every pa.s.sion and every mood. So I was happy last night to hear him. Then I heard Edouard de Reszke, the best of ba.s.s singers, with tones of a great organ, and others soft and liquid, and Jean de Reszke, a great tenor, who sings the "Swan Song" as though inspired; and I liked Bispham, but hated his part. He is a great singer; so is Mme. Litvinne.

So, I can say that I am enjoying Chicago. In fact, I always did.

I was here when the town was small, not much more than huts and hogs, lumber and mud; and now it is one of the greatest of cities.

It makes me happy just to think of the difference. I was born the year Chicago was incorporated. In my time matches were invented.

Steam navigation became really useful. The telegraph was invented.

Gas was discovered and applied to practical uses, and electricity was made known in its practical workings to mankind. Thus, it is seen the world is progressing; men are becoming civilized. But the process of civilization even now is slow. In one or two thousand years we may hope to see a vast improvement in man's condition.

We may expect to have the employer so far civilized that he will not try to make money for money's sake, but in order that he may apply it to good uses, to the amelioration of his fellow-man's condition. We may also expect the see the workingman, the employee, so far civilized that he will know it is impossible and undesirable for him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his employer. We may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. Altruism is nonsense, craziness.

_Question_. Is Chicago as liberal, intellectually, as New York?

_Answer_. I think so. Of course you will find thousands of free, thoughtful people in New York--people who think and want others to do the same. So, there are thousands of respectable people who are centuries behind the age. In other words, you will find all kinds. I presume the same is true of Chicago. I find many liberal people here, and some not quite so liberal.

Some of the papers here seem to be edited by real pious men. On last Tuesday the _Times-Herald_ asked pardon of its readers for having given a report of my lecture. That editor must be pious.

In the same paper, columns were given to the prospective prize- fight at Carson City. All the news about the good Corbett and the orthodox Fitzsimmons--about the training of the gentlemen who are going to attack each others' jugulars and noses; who are expected to break jaws, blacken eyes, and peel foreheads in a few days, to settle the question of which can bear the most pounding. In this great contest and in all its vulgar details, the readers of the _Times-Herald_ are believed by the editor of that religious daily to take great interest.

The editor did not ask the pardon of his readers for giving so much s.p.a.ce to the nose-smashing sport. No! He knew that would fill their souls with delight, and, so knowing, he reached the correct conclusion that such people would not enjoy anything I had said.

The editor did a wise thing and catered to a large majority of his readers. I do not think that we have as religious a daily paper in New York as the _Times-Herald_. So the editor of the _Times- Herald_ took the ground that men with little learning, in youth, might be agnostic, but as they grew sensible they would become orthodox. When he wrote that he was probably thinking of Humboldt and Darwin, of Huxley and Haeckel. May be Herbert Spencer was in his mind, but I think that he must have been thinking of a few boys in his native village.

_Question_. What do you think about prize-fighting anyway?

_Answer_. Well, I think that prize-fighting is worse, if possible, than revival meetings. Next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old Roman days, I think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and degrading of exhibitions. All fights, whether c.o.c.k- fights, bull-fights or pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. No matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are simply savages. Under no possible circ.u.mstances would I witness a prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. The Marquis of Queensbury was once at my house, and I found his opinions were the same as mine. Everyone thinks that he had something to do with the sport of prize-fighting, but he did not, except to make some rules once for a college boxing contest. He told me that he never saw but one prize-fight in his life, and that it made him sick.

_Question_. How are you on the arbitration treaty?

_Answer_. I am for it with all my heart. I have read it, and read it with care, and to me it seems absolutely fair. England and America should set an example to the world. The English-speaking people have reason enough and sense enough, I hope, to settle their differences by argument--by reason. Let us get the wild beast out of us. Two great nations like England and America appealing to force, arguing with shot and sh.e.l.l! What is education worth? Is what we call civilization a sham? Yes, I believe in peace, in arbitration, in settling disputes like reasonable, human beings.

All that war can do is to determine who is the stronger. It throws no light on any question, addresses no argument. There is a point to a bayonet, but no logic. After the war is over the victory does not tell which nation was right. Civilized men take their differences to courts or arbitrators. Civilized nations should do the same.

There ought to be an international court.

Let every man do all he can to prevent war--to prevent the waste, the cruelties, the horrors that follow every flag on every field of battle. It is time that man was human--time that the beast was out of his heart.

_Question_. What do you think of McKinley's inaugural?

_Answer_. It is good, honest, clear, patriotic and sensible.

There is one thing in it that touched me; I agree with him that lynching has to be stopped. You see that now we are citizens of the United States, not simply of the State in which we happen to live. I take the ground that it is the business of the United States to protect its citizens, not only when they are in some other country, but when they are at home. The United States cannot discharge this obligation by allowing the States to do as they please. Where citizens are being lynched the Government should interfere. If the Governor of some barbarian State says that he cannot protect the lives of citizens, then the United States should, if it took the entire Army and Navy.

_Question_. What is your opinion of charity organizations?

_Answer_. I think that the people who support them are good and generous--splendid--but I have a poor opinion of the people in charge. As a rule, I think they are cold, impudent and heartless.

There is too much circ.u.mlocution, or too many details and too little humanity. The Jews are exceedingly charitable. I think that in New York the men who are doing the most for their fellow-men are Jews. Nathan Strauss is trying to feed the hungry, warm the cold, and clothe the naked. For the most part, organized charities are, I think, failures. A real charity has to be in the control of a good man, a real sympathetic, a sensible man, one who helps others to help themselves. Let a hungry man go to an organized society and it requires several days to satisfy the officers that the man is hungry. Meanwhile he will probably starve to death.

_Question_. Do you believe in free text-books in the public schools?

_Answer_. I do not care about the text-book question. But I am in favor of the public school. Nothing should be taught that somebody does not know. No superst.i.tions--nothing but science.